Kicking Off the New Main Street Vegan Blog!

I pride myself on staying current. Boomer I may be, but I keep up. I’ve embraced technology, love Twitter, and juggle iDevices with some adroitness. Even so, I’ve never warmed to blogging.

I know exactly why: I started writing for a couple of pop music magazines when I was only fourteen. They paid me – 35 cents a word to start, then fifty, but they paid me, and the fact that they did told me that I was a serious writer. Now, eleven books and several hundred articles later, the assertion “I am a writer” comprises a huge chunk of my identity. And there’s the rub: blogging is writing. Some of it is exceedingly good writing. But it’s not professional writing, even when done by professional writers, because, unlike magazine articles and essays for anthologies and corporate reports and technical manuals, this is writing for which writers are not paid.

You may be thinking that I’m an awfully greedy person to put so much stock in financial reward, but I don’t expect to get paid for other things I do. I’ll sing for you for free (although you might pay me to stop) because I’m not a professional singer. I’ll offer you legal advice or medical advice, and its worth will be zero because I’m neither an attorney nor a physician. I’ll feed your dog, listen to your dilemmas, and take you shopping, all for free, because I’m not a pet-sitter, a therapist, or an image consultant. But asking a professional writer to write for free seems like your dentist to do a root canal or your accountant to do your taxes and not send a bill. Besides, I’m working on a new book – my twelfth: with a number like that, it ought to be a magnum opus. I don’t want to blog away my best ideas and favored phrases.

So, I have a sort of writer’s block, I guess: blogger’s block. And I believe that having it somehow holds up the profession of the journalist and the author. Lord knows, somebody has to. And yet, I’m supposed to blog. As a person with a message, as an author and speaker and someone with experience to share, blogging – perhaps even more than tweeting and Facebooking and YouTubing and Instagramming — is expected. Not to blog is not to show up in the world. Are you sensing a conundrum?

I’d have stayed in this miasma of damned if I do and damned the other way, too, except that I was saved by an angel. Well, she’s a woman in Colorado Springs but not all angels are glisteny and see-through and come toting a harp. This one is JL Fields, VLCE. She’s a graduate of Main Street Vegan Academy (thus the VLCE: Vegan Lifestyle Coach and Educator). She’s co-author with Virginia Messina, RD, of Vegan for Her, and even before she became a VLCE and started being a major veg hot-shot for corporations and associations, she was already a super-popular – okay, I’ll say it – blogger. She gets it. She aces it. And people love to read what she writes.

So. this angel/blogger/vegan visionary came up with the brilliant idea that I ought to be blogging (okay; I knew that) but that “I” is a curious pronoun. Maybe I don’t have to be blogging as much as the Main Street Vegan message needs to be blogged – part of the time by me but much of the time by some other bright, aware, highly informed and infinitely committed woman (or man) who’s been through the Main Street Vegan Academy program and is eager to shout from the housetops that radiant health and expanded compassion are indeed possible, and achievable, and not even difficult to come by. You just need some information. And they’ll provide that from their diverse and delightful points of views.

The plan: you’ll find right here every week a blog post on some relishable and relevant topic. The first week of the month, it’ll come from me, the rest of the time from a VLCE who has a distinct take on the state of vegan affairs – health, nutrtition, animal activism, cruelty-free fashion, planet-friendly living, and all the rest. Next week JL Fields (www.jlgoesvegan.com) herself will do the honors. You’ll hear in the future from Sayward Rebhal (www.bonzaiaphrodite.com), Dianne Wenz (www.chicvegan.com and www.veggiegirl.com), Crystal Gable (www.gethealthymarshall.com), Gary Gibson (www.theveganeffect.com), and other vegan luminaries. It’ll be fun. We’ll learn a lot. And I’ll join the blogosphere in joy and in earnest.

Thanks for reading, and commenting, and sharing. If we can help you feel terrific – body, mind, and spirit – we’ll just blog it from the housetops.

Comments

Way to go Victoria. Sandra and I are completely new to the social media game, but feel the same as you. What incredible ways to get the information out there and spread the word. A serious change is taking place and we love being a part of it. We look forward to your thoughts. Keep it up.

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"The great news these days is that vegan living is for everyone. This is such an important message, and I applaud Victoria and JL for their beautiful book that will help so many people renew their commitment to a vegan lifestyle or find the courage to take the first steps." - Emily Deschanel